I've done no careful examination and calculation of the destination of rewards flagged back to the pool, but since whales get about 90% of the rewards, it's safe to say that the share of even unflagged minnows is far lower than flag resistant whales of that returned stake.

It isn't a lack of VP that prevents minnows from flagging whales. It's retaliation. The downvote pool is going to hugely and dramatically increase censorship. Multiple accounts with no other purpose exist now, and they will hurt more creators with a bunch of free flags. Bernie is gonna go nuts. Reasonable minnows will not suddenly be immune to retaliation, and won't be using their flags to discourage lame content botted up on trending.